10A
Wednesday, September 27, 1995
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Italian politician accused of aiding the Mafia
The Associated Press
PALERMO, Sicily --- For decades, Gliolo Andreotti was sought by popes and courted by politicians for his prestige and influence. Yesterday he went on trial, accused of using that power to aid the Mafia.
The former prime minister of Italy took a front row seat in a courtroom ringed by 30 empty steel-barred cages where Mafiosi are usually held during trial.
Andreotti, wearing a double-breasted gray suit, sat erect with a notebook and pen during a morning taken up by procedural matters—including a request by his lawyers to move the trial to Rome, the Christian Democrat's hometown and power base.
At the end of his technical argument on the motion, defense attorney Franco Coppi grew impassioned.
"Is it possible that a man who represented Italy for 50 years at the same time swore allegiance to Cosa Nostra?" Coppi said, raising his voice.
In Italy's snail-paced justice system, it could be months before
Andreotti is ever called to testify. It could be years before the three-judge panel delivers its verdict.
Andreotti lost his first battle when the court upheld a prosecution request and barred live television coverage of the trial. Prosecutors said they feared witnesses might change their testimony to conform to what they might think the public wanted to hear.
Hours before the trial, Andretti told RAI state television, "I'm angry that my 50 years in public service has been put into question."
Andreotti, who claims he is a victim of a political vendetta, favored TV coverage.
After a four-hour session, the trial was adjourned to late afternoon to hear the prosecutor's request to keep the proceeding in Palermo.
One of his lawyers, Odoardo Ascari, said Andretti decided to appear in court — in Italy, a defendant can choose not to attend trial because the circumstances
nal." Ascari said Monday.
"A man must be up to his destiny and face his responsibilities. ... If you want to be a cardinal, you have to have the force to act like a cardi-
Andreotti is accused of having served the Mafia for 20 years, Ascari said. "Very well. If that's the charge, tell us when, where, how, through which government measures."
He scoffed at contentions by Mafia turncoats that Andreotti had met with mob bosses, and in one case, purportedly exchanged a two-cheeked kiss of respect.
The case against Andreotti, 76, came after corruption scandals exposed by a nationwide moral housekeeping by magistrates disgraced his Christian Democrats and their coalition partners.
Prosecutors said Monday that proving that Androtti met with Costa Nostra chiefs would not be enough to win a conviction for Mafia association, the formal charge against him.
Prosecutors rebuff the defense's contention that the case is politically motivated. Many observers read the trial as an indictment of a fallen political dynasty that ruled Italy for nearly 50 years.
Prosecutors must prove that the politician came through for the
Mafia politically.
The case developed after Andretti's faction leader in Sicily, Salvo Lima, son of a reputed Mafioso, was gunned down near Palermo in March 1992. Mafia turn-
coats told prosecutors, in the following months, that the Mafia killed Lima because he failed to keep a promise.
influence to see that convictions of Mafiosi would be overturned on appeal by politically appointed judges if the Mafa ensured that their precincts' votes went to Andreotti's faction.
Student charged in Olathe shootings
Lima had apparently told mob bosses that Androtti would use his
Judge sets bail at $500,000 for accused 17-year-old
The Associated Press
OLATHE — A 17-year-old was charged with murder yesterday in the shooting deaths of two teen-agers and the woundings of four other young men in the aftermath of a feud over a local high school football game.
A stoic Alfred Williams appeared in Johnson County District in an orange jail uniform and was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, four counts of aggravated battery and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm.
family members of the accused and the victims crowded onto several courtroom benches. The mother of one of the slain young men sobbed.
Williams did not enter a plea and was assigned a public defender. District Judge Robert Jones set bail at $500,000 for Williams, who was being held in the Johnson County Jail.
Williams' next court appearance was set for 9:30 a.m. Oct. 5.
Police said the incident began as taunting and escalated to a fist fight between groups of Shawnee Mission North and Olathe North High School students and friends at a football game between the two schools Friday night. The fights lead to a full-blown feud that erupted in shots from a semiautomatic weapon Sunday night at Olathe North, which won the Friday game.
Williams is a senior at Shawnee Mission North, school representative Michelle Dubley said.
Wilson Montenegro, 15, an Olathe North sophomore, and Jerrell Frazier, 19, a resident of Olathe but not a student, were killed.
Ryan Spornitz, 18, an Olathe North senior, was listed in stable and fair condition yesterday at Overland Park Regional Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the back.
Two other Olathe North students, both boys, were treated at hospitals for minor gunshot wounds and released.
Johnny Bruce, 23, of Olathe, was listed in serious condition at the University of Kansas Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the stomach.
Roger Nordeen, assistant Johnson County prosecutor, would not say whether more arrests or
Police ruled out gang involvement.
charges were expected.
"This looks like just a high school fight that got out of hand." Olathe police Lt Joe Reuppt said.
"This is not a case involving two armed camps having a shootout," Johnson County Prosecutor Paul Morrison said after Tuesday's hearing. "Basically, this was fistcuffs between two groups from rival schools, the kind of thing that's been going on forever."
"The tragic thing about this is that you had somebody bring a gun who wasn't afraid to use it, and that results in tremendous carnage," Morrison said. "What we're more concerned about is there not being further violence and people not doing stupid things over this."
Extra security guards and police officers began patrolling both schools Monday.
Police made two arrests Monday near Shawnee Mission North that were unrelated to the Sunday shootings. A 16-year-old Shawnee Mission North student with a gun and a 17-year-old from Oathe, who is not a student at either school, with a knife and a gun were charged with unlawful possession of weapons.
Case of infant's death by wild dog reopened
The Associated Press
DARWIN, Australia — The Northern Territory deputy coroner said yesterday that she will reopen the inquest into the 1980 death of a 9-week-old baby whose parents say she was killed by a wild dog.
The infant disappeared from the Ayers Rock camping ground during a family holiday.
A verdict could fully exonerate or find culpable Michael and Lindy Chamberlain in the death of their daughter Azaria.
The couple, whose story was told in the 1988 Hollywood movie "A Cry in the Dark," said the infant was dragged from their campsite by a dingo — a wild dog.
They were convicted in 1982. Lindy Chamberlain was sentenced
to life imprisonment for murder, while Michael Chamberlain received an 18-month suspended sentence for being an accessory after the fact.
The convictions were overturned in 1987 and the following year, the Territory Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the convictions.
Last December, coroner John Lowndes reopened the inquest into the case, took new evidence, then closed the investigation without issuing a verdict.
Deputy Territory coroner Irene Bruninghausen said Tuesday that she would conduct a very limited inquest. She gave no other details.
The reopening was prompted by reports that Michael Chamberlain planned to seek the quashing of a 1982 coroner's inquest that implicated him and his former wife.
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